


a whole heap o' livin'

by what_on_io



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Humor, M/M, Sharing a Bed, but don't let that put you off, i like to pretend series 8 doesn't exist, it might sound a bit depressing but it's not i promise, set somewhere in series 7/8, this diverges from canon pretty wildly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-17 13:32:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8145872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/what_on_io/pseuds/what_on_io
Summary: The first time it happens is with the lights off and the door securely locked. It's a collision of bodies more than anything else - the release of years of pent-up need and carnal desire. The relief of finally being able to touch, and be touched is overwhelming. Then Rimmer leaves to prance around the galaxy and its multitude of dimensions as Ace, and Lister is left alone again to realise just how much he's lost.
And Lister's past humiliation now, past a disbelieving sort of doubt. He's right onto the part of being well and truly smegged, because Rimmer's gone and he isn't coming back and Lister's in love with him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This features gratuitous canon-muddling and is probably entirely ridiculous. I can't bring myself to rewatch the whole of series 7 and 8 for the purpose of this fic, I do heartily apologise, so any errors are completely my fault. Also, this was completed at 2am, so do forgive any typos caused by the autocorrect on my laptop, which I cannot get rid of, try as I might.  
> Enjoy! I hope it's not as bad as I've made it sound!  
> Also come find me on [tumblr](www.what-on-io.tumblr.com) and talk about Series XI with me!  
> Title taken from _Home_ by Edgar Allen Guest.

The first time it happens is with the lights off and the door securely locked. It's a collision of bodies more than anything else - the release of years of pent-up need and carnal desire. The relief of finally being able to touch, and be touched, is overwhelming, and takes over any sense of rationality or _are we going to regret this later_. The hard-light drive is a near-perfect simulation of human flesh, responsive in all the right places. Rimmer feels alive under Lister's fingertips, although he barely pauses in his ministrations to stroke gentle fingers up his sides and across his chest, but it's enough, somehow: the slick _push-pull_ of motion, breaths hissed through gritted teeth that don't dare take the form of words.

It's over too quickly, the first time, but after that there are second and third times, all conducted under the customary blanket of darkness that falls over _Starbug's_ bunkroom when the nights feel too lonely.

 

* * *

 

Then Rimmer leaves to prance around the galaxy and its multitude of dimensions as Ace, and Lister is left alone again. This _last human alive_ smeg is really starting to get to him; of course, he encouraged Rimmer to go, because little does the man know it might just do him some good. Lister's never been particularly selfless, unless the selfless act happened to involve Kristine Kochanski, but his feelings for Rimmer just might have escalated from a simple need for touch, to something like desire. Something it's best to squash, before the other man finds out and things get too serious. So he wheedles and prods and eventually Rimmer agrees, and Lister cries the whole way through his fake funeral, taking it as a precursor to the real event.

When it isn't likely Rimmer will come back, Lister allows himself a single night of pondering his most recent loss. He remembers Rimmer smirking at him from across the console, remembers snide jabs at his hygiene levels, his guitar playing, his hobbies. He remembers the look in the hologram's face as they both sidled into the bunk room, those eyes lighting with need before they'd ordered the lights off in sync - a split-second visual, easy to miss. He remembers, once, Rimmer feeling sleepy and compliant in his arms, an overlapping leg and a stray hand trapping him in the bottom bunk just a little longer than usual before he'd slipped back to his own bed.  
They both console and pain him, the memories. He has no right to feel this way about someone he has no claim to, when said someone is out and about saving planets and rescuing alien princesses and God-knows what else.

Lister falls asleep in Rimmer's old bunk, his head stuffed as far into the pillow as possible, trying to dredge up a whiff of imagined scent. If there are tears in his eyes, they go unacknowledged.

 

* * *

 

Kochanski's arrival should be the thing to break Lister from his dark mood. Of course, it isn't _his_ Kochanski, but she's as good as anything in the depths of space. He listens while she regales them with tales of _her_ Dave, and how oh-so-happy they are together. They can both go and get smegged, as far as Lister is concerned, listening to her drone on about how urgent it is that she return to her own dimension, Dave'll be _so worried_. He watches as she sips from a mug of recyc tea, situated at the table in _Starbug's_ midsection, tries to drag up memories of when that pinball smile was all he needed to cling onto. Strangely, all he does manage to remember is needling Rimmer about turning his projection off to swap it with Kochanski's, and even that is with an air of regret.

He gazes wistfully at the back of her chair, sometimes, when he's coming up to the Drive room for his shift, but he can't help but long for the man who used to take her place.

Kris catches him looking a few times, but she's always too nice to say anything. She just fixes Lister with a pitiful kind of glance, like she's looking at him through an inverted prism - something's not quite right about him, something vital and colourful that she can't quite put her finger on is missing, something that separates him from his alternate self. Something that makes _pity_ spring to mind, rather than _I want to hop right on_ that!. It's irritating, really, and one day - another mind-numbing, blank day in the depths of deep space - he decides to confront her about it.

What's so bad about him, anyway? He's an alright kind of guy. Cheerful, optimistic, not entirely stupid. And not bad looking, either! If Kochanski can fall for his other self - an aesthetic replica if nothing else - why the smeg can't she fall for this Lister? This Lister, who she has right here in front of her?

"It's not about convenience, Dave," she explains, quite calmly, as though Lister is a small child she's somehow been roped into conversation with. They're on watch together in the cockpit, the least awkward time Lister could think to bring the subject up. It’s the perfect spot for Kochanski to reach across the console to pat his knee in a thoroughly un-romantic way.

"Just because you're here doesn't mean we'll fall in love, you know? Just because we're possibly the last humans alive - it doesn't mean there's a spark, does it?" Her eyebrows wiggle a bit, willing him to catch on, "I mean _just_ because we're technically the universe's only chance to repopulate the human race, it doesn't mean we _want_ to." When he continues to stare at her, uncomprehending, Kris sighs, "How can I put it? Okay - it's not like you ever fell for Rimmer, is it? When he was here instead of me? That'd be ridiculous. Well, that's what it's like when I think about me and you. You and my Dave, you're so different. He's in touch with his emotions, he's..."

  
Lister lets her trail off, trying to clamp down on the blush crawling across his face. Kochanski doesn't even notice, she's too lost in her own memories, and when Lister excuses himself to make a cuppa she just nods distractedly and lets him go.

 

* * *

 

Of course he didn't have to fall for Rimmer. Kochanski's right - it's not a matter of convenience. If that were true, she'd be in his bunk jiggling up and down with him right now. As it is, she's in the midsection with the Cat, and Lister's all alone, feeling beads of sweat collect at his brow. This is what true panic feels like, then. Not much like the surge of adrenaline that accompanies their many near-death experiences, but a terror that begins deep inside him, manifesting itself through trembling hands and burning perspiration.

Is it true, then? He thought it might be, but this must confirm it, surely.

He's in love with Rimmer.

The realisation is painful. Lister's past humiliation now, past a disbelieving sort of doubt. He's right onto the part of being well and truly smegged, because Rimmer's gone and he isn't coming back and Lister's in love with him.

The dreams are the worst part of it all. Lister always wakes up with a sheen of sweat covering his body, dragged all too soon from being reunited with his dead bunk-mate in a way he, ten or even five years previous, would have thought dry-heave worthy. He can't stand the pitiful looks he gets from Kochanski afterward, or the fussing from Kryten - it's all too forced, and all too much. Shifts with the Cat is as close as Lister gets to normality nowadays, the only place he can really avoid any mention of either Kris's or Rimmer's name. When he goes to bed the dreams come thick and fast, quelling any hope of being able to forget, just for a while. Lister gets used to waking with the feeling of hard-light lips lingering against his; he savours the feeling as long as it lasts, then drags himself up to face the day.

 

* * *

 

Two years pass this way - the most miserable of Lister's life to date, although the years directly after the accident might take a close second. He counts the reasons he should be happy - Kochanski seems relatively content in his company, after a while, staying to talk about things other than her passionate love affair with his parallel self, and Lister purposely lengthens his gazes, tells himself that Kochanski is who he wants and makes it his goal to win her over. She's funny, and interesting, but it's still a half-hearted process - Lister feels as though she's on a separate plane to him most of the time, like their thoughts might once have been on the same track but diverged somewhere along the middle. Still, it's something to occupy his time with when every passing day only drives home the fact that Rimmer isn't coming back. It becomes a game of sorts, the flirting, but Kris only ever looks at him with her head cocked to one side, and Lister feels like he's at the zoo being gawked at from behind cage bars. He supposes he deserves it, really.

"You wanna hear somethin' funny?" he offers one day after dinner. Kochanski's busy flipping through a magazine and not paying Lister much attention, but this'll get her started for sure.

"Go on, then," she agrees. Lister fiddles with the can of lager in front of him before he speaks, wondering how best to word what he's about to blurt out. He decides it'll sound ridiculous either way, takes a deep breath, and goes for it.

"You remember back on the ship, before the crew got wiped out? When I'd nip up to the Drive room to talk to you about livestock prices, or that time I got really really drunk and asked you if you'd ever fancied being a sheep herder? Heh, what about the time I mentioned floatation aids for cattle?" At her blank look, Lister presses on, "Well, I suppose it was my Kris, not you, but you catch my drift. Anyway - the thing is, the reason I brought up all that stuff- I had this plan, y'see. That me and you would eventually settle down on Fiji and breed horses. Have a little farm to ourselves. Mad, I know."

She nods, as if that's exactly what she was thinking. Her chair scrapes back a bit from the table and Lister realises she's backing away. Backing away from his plans for their future and Fiji and, most importantly, backing away from _him_.

"Not in a weird way!" Lister insists, reaching lamely for her elbow, “I mean it is a bit weird, thinking back, but at the time it was romantic. Dead romantic. Always thought you'd be up for it, to be honest. Dunno what I was thinking. Young and dumb, all that smeg. I just thought if I had enough time, that I could win you over. Fancied meself a bit in love, y'know."

"Dave, that's really... lovely. But, erm, I promised Kryten I'd help him sort some- er. Coordinates."

"Krissie - I don't believe any of that smeg now! I'm not askin' ye to up sticks to Fiji or anything. I dunno, I just- I've been thinking a lot, these past few months. About how things might've worked out if the drive plate had been fixed right, or if I'd never signed up to the Space Corps in the first place, or if I hadn't gotten stuck on Mimas. Just brings it all home, being out here so long, doesn't it?" Lister takes a huge gulp of beer, draining the can, and goes to retrieve another, muttering, "Silly, I know," while Kochanski struggles to formulate a coherent response.

"If Dave's hiding this Fiji plan from me, when I get back I'll throttle him," Kris smirks, relaxing into her chair a bit, "It's mad! Even if we by some miracle got back to Earth, Fiji would be-" She stops, abruptly, and then a smile widens over her face, "The floatation aids. Right."

Lister's smiling too, then, and if questioned on which of them started laughing first, he wouldn't be able to answer. He's still a tad affronted, naturally - those are his life goals Kochanski's guffawing over - but in the stark light of space they do seem a bit bonkers. Anyway, it feels good to laugh with her. Like a part of whatever was missing between them has returned.

"Rimmer's the one who pointed that out, y'know. Said Fiji'll be three feet below sea level. I needled him a lot, back then, but he wasn't as stupid as he looked." His gaze swivelled slowly back to his drink, to avoid looking directly at that fading pinball smile.

"You miss him, don't you?" Kochanski probes gently. Her hand is on Lister's shoulder now, squeezing slightly.

"Miss him? That smeghead?" he sniffs, "Nah. S'not like we were ever friends or anythin'."

_That's_ true, at least - Lister might’ve felt like an idiot, at one point, for missing someone he'd taught himself so well to despise, but it didn't stop him being kept awake each night worrying and wondering exactly where the hologram’s ended up, whether his light-bee is floating out in space with the thousands of other Ace Rimmers.

The thought makes him feel queasy.

"It's okay to grieve, Dave," Kris murmurs, still massaging gently. Lister tenses, unsurprised when she reels back a bit in shock.

"He's not _dead_ , Kris. Can't grieve for someone who's not- Well, not technically dead, anyway. Hologram or not."

"I thought- Kryten said something about a funeral, I just-"

_Smeg_ , Lister thinks, but it's halfhearted, "It's a bit hard to explain. Anyway it doesn't matter now, does it? S'not like he's coming back." There's a momentary pause, and Kris is still looking at him with pity shining in her face like a beacon. Why can't she just give him a hug or something? That's what you’re supposed to do when someone's upset, not just sit there with big doe-eyes, looking like everything Lister can no longer have. Everything he can't bring himself to want.

"I wanted him to switch his projection off, in the early days," Lister admits in a shaky voice. This feels like a betrayal, but he can't stand the tension in the room, can't stand the concern in Kochanski's eyes. He's a mess, he knows it. He's lonely, he's stuck out here, drinking himself into an early grave, and he can't even bring himself to properly fall for the woman he's supposed to love.

"Why? Surely it was better to have any company, even if you didn't get along?" Kris sounds genuinely confused. She probably can't fathom how anal Rimmer really was following the accident. Must be difficult for any same human to imagine being in a confined space with someone so maddening. Does it make Lister insane, then, to have endured it for so long he began to enjoy it? Probably.

"The plan was to replace his disc with someone else's." There's guilt creeping into his voice, and Kochanski's scooting closer, those perfect brows knit together in worry, mouth curled into a tiny echo of a gentle smile.

"Whose disc?" she asks, so quiet that Lister's certain she already knows the answer. He could lie, of course, and tell her Petersen, or Chen, but-

"Yours," he confesses. It feels good to admit it to her, like a weight off his chest. It seizes up again a moment later, when he hears the implications of the words from her perspective. If she didn't want to get back to her own dimension before, she certainly does now.

Instead of the slap he's expecting to get - because Lister's had all these years to realise that it might be a bit seedy, commandeering a hologram projection unit for one's own personal gain, without considering said hologram's feelings on the matter - Kochanski just smiles again, grimly. Then she pats his knee once more and straightens up out of her chair. Making a run for it, presumably. He wouldn't blame her.

"And what, you think I'd've just fallen head over heels for you, for resurrecting me?" She's faintly incredulous now, unsurprisingly. Seems even Kristine Kochanski's pity has its limits.

"No! It wasn't even about that, not really. I just missed seeing you around. And Rimmer was insufferable. I'd spent so much time thinking about how much I loved you - or, y'know, thinking I did - that it was the only hope I had to cling onto. That some day we could still have a shot at being together."

"You can't force it, Dave. Love. It has to come naturally. I don't think having me around as a hologram would have been the same love you dreamed up, anyway. Things would've been awkward, and we would have got on each other's nerves, and then we might've gotten sick of each other for good instead of growing closer," she points out. Lister nods glumly, knowing she's probably right but not wanting to admit it. Of course, it's perfectly possible that they would have grown closer. Like he and Rimmer did. But - and here's what's poking at the forefront of his mind - maybe Holly's computer senility wasn't the only reason for him reviving Rimmer instead of Kris. Maybe he knew all along.

"I've had a good life here," Lister mutters after a time, "I mean, the others drive me round the bend, yeah. Sometimes it's like living with the physical embodiment of a daytime shopping channel, the way Kryten offers me more urine recyc as if it's premium lager. And the Cat - God, if I have to hear about the horror of corduroy on denim one more time... And yeah, Rimmer got on me wick. Always there with some comment on me clothes or music or the curry soaked kebabs I used to have for breakfast. But they're like family now."

Kris doesn't say anything, but the silence has gone all the way from buzzing with disbelieving tension right back to pitying.

She doesn't say so, but Lister reckons she knows more than she lets on. And when she turns to leave, he wonders if he's managing to hide it from anybody.

Probably not. It's probably written all over his face.

 

* * *

 

They catch up to _Red Dwarf_ , eventually. It takes a few more months of being crammed into _Starbug's_ cramped living quarters, of being up in each other's personal space every minute of every day, but they manage it. The once-claustrophobic space of the vessel has just begun to feel like home - Lister is used to squeezing his showers around the Cat's strict preening schedule, used to his living space being invaded by Kryten's incessant cleaning and Kris's inane chatter, used to sitting at the console, staring out at the stars and wishing he was back on Earth. Earth, where his feelings tended to make sense and he was never far away from a drunken brawl or a rainstorm to turn his face into. Where there was no annoying feline disrupting his piloting the ship to catch the best angle of his reflection in the mirrors, where sanitation droids didn't hound him with whatever space critter he'd managed to cook into a stew, where there were no holograms with frighteningly magnetic gazes occupying his thoughts.

Sometimes Lister thinks he wouldn't cope, anyway. He's become reliant on their routines, on shrugging off offers of food and iced tea, on half-heartedly batting hands away from his console. He meant what he said to Kris - they're family, all of them, even Kochanski in a way. Not the way he'd always imagined, yeah, but they share a joke every now and then, and once she even sat down for curry night with the rest of them, although she refused the bite of vindaloo he'd proffered. Lister isn't sure he could live without it - them - now. Every day his dreams of being back on Earth recede further away from him - it feels like he'll never get back there, now.

The Dwarf seems bigger than when they left it; emptier, somehow. Lister wanders the corridors, trailing a hand along the familiar walls, welcoming the grooves and bumps under his fingertips. He heads to their old bunk room, heaves himself up into his bunk, runs reverent fingers across his old posters ( _ah, but the blue-tac is mine!_ ), sends a wary glance to the sock basket in the corner ( _I was only brave enough to take off your socks once_ ) and eventually wriggles into Rimmer's old bunk so he can stare up at the revision timetable and swimming certificates hanging on the walls, the newspaper clippings he used to mock. Everything about the room only serves to bring fresh waves of loss crashing over him, so he walks out the door without looking back.

"Lister?" The voice from the corridor startles Lister to a screeching halt, one hand coming to rest on the wall while the other clutches his chest in surprise. It's been so long since anyone's called him so simply by his surname that it makes his head swim. To Kochanski he's usually _Dave_ , as if to compensate for her own loss, Kryten still hasn't given up on the _Mister Lister_ smeg, and the Cat's impression of a greeting is _gerbil cheeks_. Only one person it can be, then.

Lister hadn't even been aware he'd fallen asleep.

"Lister, thank God, I thought you were dead!" Okay, not usually how the dreams tend to go. Usually Rimmer swipes the wig away to step towards him, his voice low and rumbly. He isn't wearing the wig now, but he's still in that ridiculous flight-suit and boots, curls slicked back into some semblance of order. Rimmer's voice is high-pitched, seemingly in the throes of panic, and when he steps towards Lister it isn't purposeful as it usually is, only slightly frantic.

"Go away, Rimmer," he hisses, ready to storm off down the corridor and see if he can wake himself up. Hurt flashes in the hologram's eyes for a second before a composed mask, eerily vacant, slides over his face.

"Lovely greeting, that is. I've been away for two and a half smegging years and the best I get is you telling me to piss off for some more!"

"I'm really not in the mood for this right now, Rimmer. I just wanna wake up."

"Wake up?" Confusion lifts Rimmer's voice another octave, "You are awake. You're standing right in front of me!"

"I know this is a dream, man. And yeah, they're nice while they last an' all, but waking up is another story."

"I'm not sure what you think is going on here, Lister, but I can assure you you're wide awake, miladdo."

The nickname startles him more - it's never appeared in any of the dreams before, the remnants of a time when Rimmer was even more anal-retentive than he was towards the end. Lister's subconscious helpfully blurred the edges a bit.

"There's no way I'm falling for this again, man. Not unless-"

He's interrupted by footfalls around the corner, before the rest of their mismatched crew turn up, skidding to a halt where they stand. Lister watches as three pairs of eyes go wide, and then it falls into place - perhaps this isn't a dream after all.

 

* * *

 

They relocate to the bunkroom because it's closest, and spend a lot of time catching up with Rimmer's adventures whilst away. Lister, sitting on his old bunk with his legs dangling off the edge, can't help but feel slightly ill at being regaled with stories of near-death experiences and narrow escapes, and his fists clench at the conclusion of Rimmer's tales, which tend to involve damsels in distress fainting dead away in his arms and being kissed back to alertness.

Eventually, when Rimmer yawns hugely in the middle of a recollection of a rescue mission, Kryten ushers them from the room with the intention of allowing the space hero a decent rest. Lister doesn't miss the hint of surprise in Rimmer's eyes - respect isn't particularly a thing commonly gained from the mechanoid in his case - and a strange feeling passes through his gut at realising how well he can still read the man.

The others filter slowly from the room - Kris is the last to go, sending a long glance back at them both, perhaps wondering if Lister intends to follow her out. He stays put in his bunk, watching Rimmer fiddle awkwardly with the zip of his flight-suit where he sits at the table, not-so-subtly avoiding eye contact.

"So you're staying, then?" Lister asks, purposely raising his voice a few octaves above the whisper he expected to come out. There's barely time for his stomach to twist in uncertainty before Rimmer replies, a breathy _of course_ , too solid for doubt.

“I’ve already passed the baton to another poor sucker. He seemed quite eager for the job, in all honesty. Poor bastard didn’t know what he was letting himself in for,” Rimmer sighs, “It wasn't-" he starts, and then leaves the sentence hanging. Lister glances up to meet his eyes, unsurprised when the other man drops his gaze first, "-it wasn't as good as I made it sound."

"No," Lister agrees. The reality of having Kochanski back didn't live up to his fantasies, either; he knows what that's like.

"I missed you," Rimmer admits eventually - perhaps bravery still clings to him while he's wearing that smegging suit, "The others, too, but mostly just you."

It's too much and not enough. Lister would swing himself down from the bunk and take Rimmer into his arms if only he had the strength, but he's too afraid. Afraid that this all might still be an elaborate dream cooked up by a mind starved of touch and, dare he think it, love for too long a time. Afraid that all of Rimmer's exploits will have made him redundant - after all, for someone who's been doing such an awful lot of celebratory shagging with exotic women (and men, by the sound of it), Rimmer probably doesn't experience the same desperation for a familiar touch as Lister does. (He won't admit out loud that it might be desperation for something else, not even to himself, because it's been two years and all that is confined to the safety of his head. Anyway, it should still all be faintly hilarious considering their respective relationship before all this emotional smeg muscled in).

So he merely flips himself over in his bunk so he's lying with his feet on the pillows, where he can get a better look at Rimmer's face. Brown eyes flicker over recent scars and new lines, so accurately projected by Rimmer's light-bee that Lister would swear he was human again. The scars map out the years when Lister couldn't be by his side, and he dedicates himself to committing each one to memory, to re-learning the other man until he knows him as well as before.

"You haven't said much," Rimmer points out, breaking the uneasy silence, "I'd have thought you'd have quite a bit to recount after getting Kochanski back. Are things going as well as you'd hoped?"

There's no malice in his voice - in fact, the query seems rather good-natured. Perhaps the great space hero Ace Rimmer fails to notice the gaping spaces between he and Kris; perhaps he's so blinded by the optimism gained from a thousand successful missions that all rational sense has seeped out of Rimmer. As if Kochanski could ever be what he'd envisioned her to be. Lister has spent too long putting her on a pedestal, and it's not fair to her - she has as many faults as any of them, and it's made all the more obvious when in as confined a space as _Starbug_. He'd feel guilty at this, perhaps, if he wasn't all-consumed with another emotion so opposite.

"She's not interested in me, man," Lister says, dimly aware that his younger self would have wholeheartedly protested the admission, true as it is, "Not sure I'm interested in her, if I'm honest."

"Oh?" Rimmer asks, and there's a familiar gleam in his eyes when he swivels slowly to face Lister. Within seconds he's hopped down from the bunk, and Rimmer's arms are sliding around his back.

He's missed this - a dream state really doesn't do it justice, doesn't quite manage to capture the heat that pools low in his belly when Rimmer lowers his voice those few octaves, doesn't emulate the sensation of calloused palms reaching up inside his shirt to rest on his shoulder blades, thumbs stroking slow circles into his skin.

"Missed you," he breathes into Rimmer's neck, "Never thought I'd get to do this again."

"Mmm," seems to be all Rimmer is capable of uttering, but the sentiment is clearly expressed, and Lister takes no time in guiding him to the bottom bunk. He spies Rimmer opening his mouth, sees the first syllable of _lights!_ form on his lips and reaches out a finger to rest on the other man's mouth, silencing him.

"I want to see you," he says, and the sudden shift in dynamic at the expressed truth leaves them both stunned for a second.

"I need to know you want this," Lister says, although they've been in this same position countless times, with Lister straddling Rimmer's hips and his hand sneaking to unzip his trousers. It's all so different now, of course, without either of them having to say any of it out loud.

"You know I do," Rimmer replies, strangely calm. Lister isn't sure what he expected, perhaps a mild-mannered rebuke or a downright refusal ending in him backing urgently from the room, hands up in a surrender position. He thinks maybe he's misunderstanding the entire situation, but then Rimmer's own hands start trailing lower, and anything Lister might have said in retaliation dies on his lips.

 

* * *

 

In the aftermath, they lie on Rimmer's bunk, tangled together in the sheets, Lister's toes pressed into Rimmer's calves. Once their collective breathing has slowed, Lister finds he can speak again and is in the process of summoning the courage, trailing a finger distractedly down the planes of Rimmer's chest, when the other man beats him to it.

"Does this... change things, then?" The earlier calm has abated, leaving familiar neuroses and fear in his voice. This only serves to comfort Lister - he has his Rimmer back, at long last, and he can only chuckle gently in response, tucking his head into the crook of Rimmer's elbow.

The other man looks slightly offended until Lister can collect himself enough to say, "Course it doesn't, smeghead." His expression morphs into alarm, then, and Lister hastily puts him out of his misery, "It seems like I've felt this way forever. Nothing much has changed for me except you've come back, and this isn't just a dream anymore."

He feels rather than hears Rimmer's shaky exhalation, the way it rattles lightly through his chest, "Gimboid," he mutters, but there's nothing behind it. He strokes a stray dread from Lister's face, tucks it behind an ear in such an oddly affectionate gesture that Lister can't keep the dopey smile off his face.

"Love you," he whispers, happily. Rimmer smiles, a tiny faint thing that escalates into a wide grin as the words sink in.

"You know I do too," he says, an echo of his earlier admission. Lister doesn't miss his avoidance of the word itself, but there's time for that later. Now that they have a later.

"All those space princesses not your type, then?" he asks teasingly, and then regrets it instantly. He isn't sure he wants to know the answer.

"Nah. They washed more than once a year, for one thing. Didn't leave filthy socks deserving of a public health warning lying around. Not many annoying Scouse gits floating about in space these days, you know?"

Lister huffs a laugh, "Seriously, though, man. I missed you. Things haven't been the same without your daily inventories. Kryten went spare when he couldn't find the last can of beans. Turned out they'd gotten mixed in with the chillies - he wouldn't rest until he'd checked all four supply decks were properly alphabetised."

They both chuckle a bit, because for two grown men talking about feelings is the emotional equivalent of pulling teeth, and the tension abates a bit. Then, taking a deep breath, Lister murmurs, "Kochanski did help me get some things sorted out, though."

Rimmer freezes, raising his head a bit to look Lister properly in the eye. A flicker of doubt passes through his own, and his forehead creases a bit, making Lister squirm. He presses a firm hand to the hologram's chest, nudging him softly back into the pillows, and deposits a kiss to his curls.

"Nothing bad, smeghead," he says, because Rimmer looks like he might be about to make a run for it, space hero or not, "We never really got anything going, I told you. We tried, a bit, but it's like she said. You can't force love." Surprisingly, Lister's voice remains mostly steady and the word comes out, albeit squeakily, "It has to come natural, like. Made me feel a bit stupid, lustin' after her all those years and then having her there being a letdown.”

“You had to hope for something, though. Not sure even I - Ace Rimmer, Space Adventurer - could have kept you sane without hope.”

Lister looks at Rimmer, then, properly looks at him, and sees him reflexively backing away into his alias. He’s stripped of both suit and wig now, just a thin sheet covering half his chest, but there’s something in the set of his jaw, the slight avoidance of Lister’s eyes that projects _Ace_ and not _Rimmer_. Lister wonders faintly if this is something he’ll have to contend with often, after all the other man’s been through.

“Won’t you miss it, man?” he asks, “Being Ace? Exploring different dimensions? The adventures?”

“Honestly?" Rimmer replies, “No. It was never really me, Listy. Sure, it worked out for all the other Rimmers, or so it seemed. But how many of them were just going through the motions like I was, still a coward deep down? It was exhausting. I just had to grit my teeth and hope for the best, with no backup, no-one to really talk to - just me, all alone in that smegging ship. It’s different with you lot. You let me cower away under a table somewhere and still offer me a beer when it’s all over. However begrudgingly.” The last is uttered with a smirk, and a hand in Lister’s hair. Rimmer strokes his way down the dreads, pausing to twirl an end around his index finger before Lister speaks.

“We do, at that.” He chuckles a bit, secretly relieved that he has Rimmer here, whole, not pining away for his past life. He won’t pretend he prefers Ace’s swagger or shiny spacesuit or his low rumble of a voice over Rimmer’s ‘Arnie does it best’ news clippings and his RISK stories, not anymore. Because if Ace’s whole life is a facade, Lister would much rather have the real Rimmer, here with him. Coward or not.

There are still questions, of course, but with Rimmer’s hand on his skin and that solid body beneath his own, he reckons they can wait until morning.

* * *

 

Lister wakes first the next day. He’s terrified for a second - certain that Rimmer will disappear right from under his hands and he’ll be left in an empty bunk. He spies Ace’s suit on the floor, the wig tossed carelessly across the room, and when neither vanish before Lister’s eyes, he risks a glance at the man beneath him.

Rimmer looks softer in sleep. It’s weird - Lister’s seen him asleep before, of course - they’ve shared a bunkroom long enough - but never this intimately. The rigidity is gone from his frame, his mouth is slumped in a lax line, and every now and then he emits a little _hmph_ of a snore. Lister wants to kiss him - and he does, because he can. A little peck on Rimmer’s lips, gentle enough not to wake him. When he’s taken it all in - the flicker of his eyelids, the flaring of those cavernous nostrils, the way half his curls have been tamped down by the pillow - Lister snuggles back in beside the hologram, hiking the duvet further up the bed so it covers them both, and before long resumes his great honking snores which Rimmer is so used to they don’t even break his REM cycle.

 

* * *

 

Kochanski finds them later, still groggy from sleep herself. She came into the bunkroom to grab a jacket she abandoned last night while they were all being regaled with Ace’s tales, and now she’s staring wide-eyed at the bottom bunk and wondering how quietly she can sneak back outside.

“Kris.” Lister’s voice is a croak, and he struggles to prop himself on one elbow before Kochanski can take her leave. She ends up squatting quickly by the table, arm outstretched as if to reach for her discarded jacket, an absurd imitation of hide and seek.

“Shhh, Dave. Go back to sleep,” she murmurs. Maybe she can pass it off as a dream. Somehow it doesn’t feel right, interrupting them like this. It’s like the time she saw her gran stark naked and had to bathe her eyeballs in soapy water.

“S’alright. I’m awake now. Somethin’ you wanted?”

She pauses, still stuck in her awkward crouch. Truthfully, there is something she wants. Something it might be best to discuss with the entire crew, and not just a sleepy, naked, alternate version of her boyfriend who has a string of drool dangling from his bottom lip. Still, needs must and all.

“Actually, yeah. I noticed Ace’s - er, Rimmer’s - ship’s still docked in the landing bay. It can dimension jump, can’t it?”

“The _Wildfire_? Yeah, why?”

God, he really is as stupid as he looks sometimes. Kochanski beams a big smile anyway, easing from her position on the floor and sliding into a metal chair. Her gaze keeps swivelling involuntarily to the two of them, legs tangled together, Rimmer’s arm curled protectively around Dave’s waist. It’s a bit weird, in all honesty.

“And it works, doesn’t it? The ship? It’s not like it crashed or anything?”

“Erm, no. It works.” He sounds nervous, now, and Kochanski wonders if the prospect of losing her still worries him.

“So, theoretically, I could use it to jump back to my dimension, yeah?”

“Erm. Well. Yeah, I guess. Theoretically. If you could find a pilot.”

Oh, Christ, he thinks she wants to take his boyfriend with her. Kris fights the urge to roll her eyes - she needs him onside for this to run smoothly. She doesn’t want to have to steal the ship from under their noses if she can help it - although she’ll resort to underhand tactics if necessary. Anything to get out of this smegging dimension and back to her own.

“I’m a qualified navigation officer, Dave. I’m pretty sure if Rimmer can pilot the thing, I bloody well can.”

“Oh. Yeah. So you’re- leaving then?”

“Well, if Rimmer doesn’t mind me commandeering his ship, yeah.” _And if he does mind, he can smeg off with the rest of you._

It’s not like she hates them, or anything. Her situation just grates on her. It’s like the artificial gravity isn’t calibrated properly, like the floor’s tilted at a funny angle and she’s in danger of falling right into deep space. Something is off about the air in this dimension, the lighting. It’s the same, but it _feels different_. And the crew - Kryten can't stand her still, they bicker over stupid things and he moans at her for things out of her control, and, to tell the truth, most of the time she’d quite like to smack his stupid square head into the nearest table. And Dave… This Dave is so uncultured, so unhygienic. He’s smart when he wants to be, yeah, but he doesn’t direct his energies in a proper direction.

That’s not the worst of it, though. The worst is that sometimes - rarely, mind you - she sees a bit of her own Dave in him, and it feels like a betrayal.

“Rimmer doesn’t mind,” the man himself pipes up, voice muffled a bit with the way his face is smushed into the pillow. Lister looks a bit taken aback, sits up a bit more in bed.

“You can have the ship. Take it, it’s yours. I’ll be quite happy if I never have to see it again in my life.”

Kochanski relaxes. The worst part of it’s over, then. She’s jumped the biggest hurdle - informing Dave, although he still looks a bit shell-shocked, sitting in bed with his dreads askew - and Rimmer has agreed to let her take the craft. As for the others, Kryten couldn’t give two smegs where she is as long as it’s not in close proximity to the mechanoid, and while the Cat might be dismayed at the lack of a female presence once again, she’s pretty sure Lister’s told him Kochanski’s off limits anyway. Not that she’s a thing to be put under restrictions, mind. She might take that up with her own Dave, once she’s back home-

Home. Stars, it felt like a pipe dream, and now it’s actually going to happen. She’s actually going to get back there.

If there’s a spring in her step when she leaves the bunkroom, well, that’s not her fault, is it?

 

* * *

 

Lister’s quiet once Kris has left. Rimmer climbs gingerly out of bed, still a bit sore from the previous night, and summons his uniform into existence. It appears, shimmering, to cover his body, the lovely blue tunic and trousers that feel like home. He looks to the discarded flight suit still in a rumpled pile on the floor with something like disgust, and vows to boot it from the nearest airlock at his earliest convenience.

It’s not like it was all negative, of course. At first it might even have been fun - pilot of his own vessel, a thousand shiny buttons to press, calling all the shots. All the world-saving had felt good - a karmic relief of sorts, atoning for all the smeggy things he’s done. Would he do it all over again? Probably not, no. It was nice while it lasted, before the heroics got tiring and missing Lister pressed down harder on him, and all the swooning women took on the same blurred outline only with different coloured hair and eyes, and once, memorably, a single horn protruding from her nasal cavity. None of them had been Lister, and none of the adventures were, and Rimmer really resents admitting this, quite as exciting without the ragtag band of misfits for him to hide behind.

“She’s really going, then,” Lister echoes from behind him. Rimmer glances warily at his lover - is this where regret springs up, apologies bubble from his lips? Rimmer can take it. He’s taken worse. He’s stood his ground while Simulants threatened to turn his guts inside out, and, while this feels similar, logically the Simulant situation really was much worse.

If only he could convince his heaving chest of that.

“It feels weird letting her go, man,” Lister admits, “Not… not wrong, mind. Just weird. Like we should all stick together, y’know? Last humans and all that.”

Rimmer doesn’t know what to say, so he keeps his mouth shut and lets Lister’s emotions spout forth, “I want her to be happy, and I know she’s not happy here. So it’s a good thing she’s going, really. And I’m not sure I’ll miss her, exactly - I’ve got everythin’ I need now. But just like that, she’s off? Like these two and a half years didn’t mean anythin’?” He heaves a huge sigh, and reaches out to pull Rimmer back towards him. Rimmer doesn’t complain - just takes in the sleepy scent of Lister in the mornings, and presses a kiss to his head.

“She’ll be alright,” he says, because she will be, and because it’s what Lister needs to hear, “She’s got her own Lister waiting out there for her. Seems like everyone needs their own - they could start a cloning service. ‘For all your Lister-y needs’.”

Dave huffs a laugh that tickles Rimmer’s midriff and makes him laugh, too, “And all the other Rimmers you found? They had their own Listers, too, then?”  
“Oh, yeah. Nearly every one. Don’t think we can survive without you, miladdo.”

They’re still entwined when the door hisses open a second time and Kryten bursts in, midway through a celebratory yell of, “Ms Kochanski’s leaving, sirs!”. He freezes in the doorway, followed closely by the Cat, whose usual grace deserts him at the sight and he slams right into Kryten’s back in surprise.

“Dudes, seriously?” he exclaims. They’ve got a lot of explaining to do - about Ace, about their relationship - but it can wait, because the Cat is dry heaving into a potted plant and Kryten is accosting Rimmer, insisting that Mr Ace stop his assault on Mr Lister’s face like that.

“It really is quite distressing, sirs! Why are you laughing?!”

 

* * *

Kris leaves the next day. Her calculations are complete, an A3 sheet rolled up into an elastic band and tucked under her arm, and she’s wearing Ace’s forgotten flight suit especially for the occasion.

“It’s been… well, not fun, but something,” she says. She steps forward to give Lister a one-armed hug, and while he’s trying not to blub at the ceremony of it all, whispers, “I’m glad he makes you happy, Dave. You deserve it.”

She told him the previous night that while she might have been destined to fall in love with her Dave, it didn’t necessarily mean every Lister and Kochanski were. It makes Lister wonder, in all the dimensions he and Rimmer are tied together, maybe Kochanski’s is the fluke. Maybe there’s no such thing as destiny at all. Maybe all the minute changes to a person’s life, the times they took a wrong turn and ended up talking to someone in a different bar than their local, all the times they changed their mind and the people influencing them changed _their_ minds, so they ended up making an entirely different decision to the one they originally intended: maybe they make different people entirely. Maybe each one of their alternate selves are too different for destiny to work out the same way, and what’s perfect for one will be the worst thing in the world for another.

“Bye, Krissie,” Lister mutters, in a voice low enough to conceal a sob. He steps back from her, allowing Rimmer to slip an arm around his body to hold him close while he struggles to unfold a crusty napkin to blow his nose into.

They came clean about Ace the night before. Kryten voiced his continual astonishment at the human race’s propensity for pathological lies, but it was more awe than judgement. The Cat shrugged, and claimed that any Rimmer was too many for him.

Lister’s glad they know, though. And looking at Rimmer now, curled into his side, he finally seems relaxed in his own skin. Like all the Ace malarky was something he had to work through to realise that his own self is the one he most wants to inhabit, and that it’s easier to be himself than it is to put on a veneer, whether it’s a brave one or one obsessed with astronavigation or one completely taken by his father’s mad military ambition. Looking at the slacker set to his shoulders and the easy smile on his face, Lister loves him. He loves him all the time - when he’s poring over RISK strategies, when he’s bemoaning Lister’s toenail clippings getting caught in his blankets, when he’s prattling on about risk assessment forms. He isn’t sure what that says about him, and he doesn’t care. He doesn’t know what that says about him, either.

“Kryten,” Kochanski nods. The mechanoid only narrows his eyes a tad, and says stiffly, “Ms Kochanski, ma’am.” The Cat steps in with a quick hug of his own, and then Kris is moving towards the _Wildfire_ in a bizarre imitation of that scene two and a half years ago.

“See you, then,” she says at the door, just to fill the silence. Lister gives her a mock salute and the others pitch in with a halfhearted wave, and just like that she’s descended into the cockpit and the door has hissed closed behind her.

The _Wildfire_ takes off a lot more smoothly than it had done for Rimmer. He blushes a bit at the perfect exit from the landing bay, and the craft disappears with a _blip!_ into another dimension.

“Are you alright?” Rimmer asks Lister in an undertone, arm still firmly around his shoulders. Lister smiles a watery smile, “Yeah, man. You know me and goodbyes, eh? When you left, I didn’t stop moping for a fortnight, according to the Cat.”

“A fortnight, you say? I’m honoured, Listy. I can beat it with a month, though. A whole month, out there all alone, pining-“

“Oi, shut it, smegger. Try missing you for two and a half years with no daily adventures to distract ye. Then you’ll have had it tough.”

“You’re so sentimental. It’s touching,” Rimmer smirks, twirling them round a bit so he can peck Lister on the tip of his nose, “Soppy goit.”

“Ah, you love me really.”

“That I do, Lister. That I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> I can only apologise for this.


End file.
